One of ICANN's key commitments is to promote competition in the domain name market while ensuring Internet security and stability. New generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) help achieve that commitment by paving the way for increased consumer choice by facilitating competition among registry service providers. Soon entrepreneurs, businesses, governments, and communities around the world will be able to apply to operate a Top-Level Domain registry of their own choosing.

Just about any type of New gTLD imaginable can be applied for. Already, organisations have announced plans for:

In 2012, ICANN accepted the first round of applications for new generic Top-Level Domain names. In March 2013 ICANN released the first set of Initial Evaluation results to applicants and the public and anticipates that results for all applications will be published by the end of August 2013. Successful applications will be eligible to proceed to contracting and the first new gTLDs delegated soon after.

Because this is an important change to the Internet domain name system, ICANN developed this fact sheet to provide basic information about the program. What is a gTLD? gTLD stands for generic Top-Level Domain and is an Internet top level name such as .com, net or .org. Right now there are roughly two dozen gTLDs, but soon, there could be hundreds. Any established entity located anywhere in the world can apply to form and operate a new gTLD Registry. Applications have closed but a second round is planned. Contact us for more details. enquiries@slamstrategy.com.au